Having witnessed a steady surge over the last few years, the Indo-China trade may this year register one of the lowest turnover at barely Rs 40 lakh due to the early onset of winter and trade being discontinued in the last 10 days.

While last year the value of imports was Rs 4.55 crore and exports valued at Rs 4.03 crore, this year, the imports stand at a mere Rs 15 lakh and exports Rs 22 lakh so far. As such, the trade is barely 5 per cent of what it was last year. The total trade, including exports and imports, had touched an all-time high of Rs 9 crore in 2015.

The fear and apprehension among the traders due to the Doklam standoff between the two neighbours was also a major reason for the trade being reduced to a trickle. Despite the issuance of 105 trade passes to locals for undertaking trade with China, only 41 traders undertook the journey across the border.

With the higher reaches of Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti experiencing snowfall in the first half of November itself, the trade has abruptly come to a standstill. To make matters worse, a vehicle of the Customs Department met with an accident about 3 km short of the border point between India and China near Shipkila yesterday.

“Unfortunately, the accident at this site has halted the trade almost 10 days earlier. Moreover, the shadow of Doklam standoff has made the traders very apprehensive and fearful of entering the Tibetan region of China,” said Hishey Negi, president of the Indo-China Traders Association. He said a vehicle had met with an accident at the same time in 2015 also and the Customs staff are now reluctant to travel on this route due to snow.

Negi said he would be meeting the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Customs officials to request them to cooperate with the traders so that they could make one last trip in the remaining nine days.

Though officially the trade period is from June 1 to November 30, the volume of trade picks up only towards the end when traders carry stuff to be sold at the International Lavi Fair in Rampur. The list of items to be included in the trade is issued by the Union Ministry of Commerce.

With the land trade between India and China failing to pick up during the past decade, a dozen new items, including Chinese handicrafts, carpets and herbal medicines, were included in the trade list in 2012 to boost the trade. This did help increase the volume of trade, but the banning of livestock trade hit the Indo-China trade to a great extent. Repeated requests of the traders to allow livestock trade have not been acceded to so far.

Though to date not even a single Chinese trader has visited India, traders from the Indian side have kept the trade going, with the volume increasing over the years.